Invoices - insert a line item

[dzee]

I have been using FM starting Point and Filemaker for sometime although I would characterize myself as still a beginner. I have been searching for a long time for a way to insert a line into the middle of an invoice table. I wish to use the line as a seperator for groups of items invoiced to one customer. I would prefer to do this rather than make one invoice for each group. This is easy to do as I make up an invoice but I can find no way to insert a line after the fact. Yes, I could export the invoice to a .pdf or Microsoft Word and edit it there but so much easier if I could to this within Filemaker. Is it possible to do this in the data entry layout?

[Lee Smith]

Automatic message

This topic has been moved from "FileMaker 13 General Discussion" to "FM Starting Point - General Discussions".

[Richard Carlton]

Uh Yah... Thats interesting.  You probably need to implement a sort order on the portal.  And then have an number field that you arbitrarily sort by.   So you can change the numbers...to control the shorting.

 

Its an interesting problem...and one that I have not thought about in a very long time.

 

Actually I do thank you for brining this up.   Refreshing to have been hit in the head with something so obvious. 

 

There is no easy fix... except for the sorting...and then sorting by the number that you can arbitrarily control.

 

Its kind of a hack.

 

I could actually script a process to insert a row...and then delete a row... but it would be VERY fragile...and as soon as somebody tried to add a field... to the portal...this process would break.

 

Hmmm.

[comment]

 I wish to use the line as a seperator for groups of items invoiced to one customer.

 

I know nothing about FM Starting Point. In an ordinary invoicing solution, you would simply sort the line items by the group field and use a sub-summary part to separate the groups.

 

This is assuming you need this separation for printing only. For on-screen display - in list view or in a portal - you could use some conditionally formatted object to indicate the first item in each group. There is no way to insert blank space, other than by creating dummy records - something which I would strongly advise you to avoid.

[dzee]

Thank you both for your replies.

I would like to have the ability to insert a line while working in the Invoice data entry screen. The sort option has worked if I have forgotten to add a line item but, as far as I have tried it, does not allow me to have that visual break between line items which I wish to have while working......not just for printing. I don't doubt that I am missing something.

For on-screen display - in list view or in a portal - you could use some conditionally formatted object to indicate the first item in each group. There is no way to insert blank space,or on-screen display - in list view or in a portal - you could use some conditionally formatted object to indicate the first item in each group. There is no way to insert blank space.

Could you elaborate on this?

[comment]

you could use some conditionally formatted object to indicate the first item in each group. ...

Could you elaborate on this?

 

I meant to point you to the demo posted here:

http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/54781-getting-a-value-from-previous-portal-row/#entry258830

 

Unfortunately, due to some forum glitch the attachment cannot be downloaded, even though this was already reported.  Here's the same file from my own repository:

 

 

GetNthInPortal.fp7.zip